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Trent Kalamack
Trenton Aloysius Kalamack (1979-present) is a main character of the Hollows series, being the main antagonist in the early series and slowly developing into an anti-hero: a city councilman, well-connected businessman, and philanthropist. A full-blooded elf, he keeps his racial identity secret. Though a consummate gentleman, he is dangerous, cunning, and manipulative with the truth, which early on causes many misunderstandings and false accusations by Rachel, whom he doggedly attempts to employ for years under an airtight contract that signs her over to his company for life. Kalamack supplies the majority of Cincinnati's Brimstone, an illegal drug, and produces illegal "biodrugs" -- medical drugs created through genetic engineering. Along with the Master Vampire Piscary, he is one of the two most powerful men in Cincinnati, controlling a good half of the city both above and below-ground. Physically, Trent is six feet tall, two years older than Rachel (in his late 20s during the series), with a lean, muscular body type, green eyes, light, wispy blonde hair and usually sporting a tan. His characteristic smell is of cinnamon and wine. Though still a little pointy, his ears were docked, like all elves' ears were, to look more human, and by the end of book #9, Pale Demon, he is missing several fingers on one hand. Both of his parents passed away when he was a teenager and his siblings were murdered when he was a small child. Kalamack still has some issues with the love he didn't receive from his father, and therefore is slightly jealous of Rachel's loving relationship with hers until his early death. He also mentions that his mother was with Rachel's father when she died. History In the Main Series Trenton, Rachel, and Stanley Saladan have a history of attending the same camp as children. The camp was a front for Kalamack Sr.'s genetic therapy to children, and Trent was there to recover from his weak elven genes. 'Dead Witch Walking' Rachel repeatedly breaks into Trent Kalamack's compound attempting to find evidence to charge him with murder, and blackmail to ensure her security from him. The first time she is caught, Kalamack offers her employment without explanation, offering exorbitant compensation in return for a lifetime of exclusive service. He indicates modest respect for her abilities combined with disdain and a desire to completely control and use her. Later, Kalamack catches her in mink form, keeping her in a cage where she observes his manipulative and illegal modus operandi firsthand, including his committing murder. At the same time, she expresses confusion over his softer private side. 'The Good, The Bad, and the Undead' Coming soon 'Every Which Way But Dead' Quen asks Rachel to accompany Trent on Saladan's highbrow gambling boat as bodyguard, since Quen's vampire scar leaves him vulnerable but Rachel has learned to control herself despite hers. She is dressed for the occasion in clothes belonging to Kalamack's fiancée. During the excursion, it is revealed that Kalamack can--and thinks he does--control the entire Western Hemisphere, and that the Brimstone he produces and distributes is safe, whereas higher levels would cause deaths. There is an allusion made to the survival of the elves being tied to his treatment of the humans, but it is unclear what the implication is. When the boat is set to explode, Trent funnels Rachel ley-line power through his familiar so she can set a protection circle. They land in the icy water, Rachel getting them on solid ice before passing out, and Trent recovers first with his elven resistance to cold and rescues her. Back at the Kalamack compound, Trent and Rachel have breakfast together and Rachel discovers an icy, confrontational relationship between Trent and his fiancée. When the fiancée leaves over Rachel's ribbing, the two of them find common ground until Rachel gets angry about Trent's desire to employ her. Rachel manipulates Trent into giving her information on their parents' past and the Make-a-Wish camp, the origin of the elven genetic problem, and her own genetic disorder. Trent solicits Rachel's services to kill Saladan, but she counters by soliciting his help to tag him instead. Trent sustains minor inconvenience to do as she says, lying to the world that she died in the boat explosion. 'A Fistful of Charms' Trent does not feature in this story. 'For a Few Demons More' Quen and Trent implore and bribe Rachel into working security at Trent's wedding, and when she fights against the idea tooth and nail because it coincides with her birthday, Trent alleviates some of her concern by changing her birthday date arrangements at Carew Tower. Trent kills the Were Brett in an attempt to find the focus that is in Rachel's possession. During the wedding reception, Trent rescues Rachel from an almost abusively seductive dance with Al, and while he dances with Rachel, she tells him about Ceri and how old she is, at which Trent exclaims in a way that indicates he wouldn't be marrying Ellasbeth if there were a purer-bred female elf available. The next night, Rachel breaks up his wedding to Ellasbeth to arrest him for the murder. While in custody, he sits in on the round-table meeting where Rachel attempts to decide the fate of the focus reasonably, with representative city powers present; when her attempt fails, he does his best to protect Stanley Saladan, and sees Rachel doing demon magic to take in the focus. Trent then goes to jail and escapes on bail 3 hours later with the assistance of Quen and a pixy ally. 'The Outlaw Demon Wails' Rachel ambushes Trent at a costume shop and dresses him up as the spitting image of Rynn Cormel while getting information from him about Ceri's condition. In the hopes of finding an ancient Elven DNA sample from the Demon collective, Trent ventures into the Ever-After with Rachel and Jenks when she goes to get Al's summoning name, buying passage for all of them in return for taking on a demon mark from Minias. Trent gets them all caught, but after Rachel and Jenks make it out on their own, Rachel returns and rescues Trent from the ever-after, naming him her familiar and taking ownership of his demon mark in the process. Trent discovers firsthand that Rachel is true demonspawn, and briefly attempts to kill her. 'White Witch, Black Curse' Rachel meets Trent in Carew Tower, where she expresses a desire for a Pandora's Charm, a piece of elven magic that can restore wiped memories. A few days later, a Pandora's Charm appears in the mail for Rachel. 'Black Magic Sanction' Trent offers to protect Rachel from the coven by taking "responsibility" for controlling her, if she signs onto his exclusive employment, and basically ownership of her. After refusing his "offer", Rachel makes a long, convoluted plot to steal from the Kalamack compound in order to blackmail Trent and the Coven into keeping her demon lineage secret, attempting to delay his backlash by leaving behind a symbolic gift. She watches the memory contained in the Pandora's Charm and is left still confused as to whether she trusts him now--but she knows that he was not evil in their childhood. She ultimately works out a deal where Trent agrees to testify on her behalf at the witch's convention, when she goes on trial, and they part ways learning that their mutual mistrust may not be well-placed. That night, Rachel meets Trent at his stables and rides with the elves under the new moon. 'Pale Demon' In the book Pale Demon, Trent joins Rachel, Jenks & Ivy in a cross country road trip to complete an elf "quest", seemingly a right of manhood. Trent has assassins after him, and Quen will not leave Ceri when she is close to giving birth, so Trent reluctantly agrees to go with Rachel & company. During the trip Trent frees the demon Ku'Sox, saying it is part of his quest but will not explain why he would risk it (Ku'Sox kills many people during the trip, including pixies & children, and he devours the souls of anyone he can physically catch). Initially summoning Ku'Sox seems to make Trent bleed from the ears, but after Rachel removes her familiar bond with him and emancipates him, he becomes immune to all demon magic and Ku'Sox can no longer magically harm him, nor can any other demon. When they reach their destination, it is revealed that Trent's quest was to steal back his infant daughter Lucy, who has been with her mother since Trent broke up with her. Once Trent has Lucy back, he goes to Rachel's trial in front of the Coven. He appears to defend her, but then offers the Coven a curse that will force Rachel into the Ever After and prevent her from returning to reality without a summons. Rachel sobs and begs him not to do this to her, but he forces the curse on her while quietly begging her to trust him, and making sure Rachel clearly hears how the curse is performed. While Rachel is trapped in the Ever After, she realizes that Trenton has given her instructions on how to push the curse into Ku'Sox and contain him. However when she finally succeeds in forcing the curse into Ku'Sox, Ku'Sox drags her into a ley line and begins to rip chunks of her soul from her and eat them. Bis (the gargoyle) who is bonded with Rachel feels this and pulls Rachel from the ley line, bringing her to Trent and begging Trent to save her, saying that their auras are similar. Rachel's aura had been completely ripped away by Ku'Sox, and Trent removes Rachel's soul from her body with elf magic, placing it in a baby bottle and sending her body to the hospital to be put on life support while he figures out how to rejoin the two once she has healed. While trying to find the right elven spell to rejoin her body and soul, Al attacks him and rips off several of his fingers, believing him to be responsible for Rachel's state and unable to affect him with magic. He is saved by Pierce and later returns Rachel's soul to her body with a kiss, an act of trust which was a required part of the magic spell. Trent leaves her with a bracelet that separates her from all ley lines and makes her invisible to the demon collective. 'A Perfect Blood' Trent urges Rachel to stop hiding behind the bracelet he gave her, and live up to her potential. Later, Trent appears out of nowhere to rescue Rachel when she is caught by HAPA, apparently having been recruited by Jenks. After rescuing her and Winona, Trent takes Winona in (despite her hideous half-demon appearance) and allows her to live with his family as a babysitter while she is unfit to be shown in public. After the Kalamack research compound is broken into, he calls Rachel in to look at the crime scene, trusting her to find the clues his people missed, and during her visit he ends up helping Rachel remove her binding bracelet and deal with Al at her request, betraying, in the process, that he is willing to face death to help her. In the bonus chapter for this book, written from Trent's point of view: he discovers that he enjoys standing with Rachel against danger, and begins to consider the possibility that he's falling in love with her. He also realizes that Al has feelings for her, and puzzles over her decision to trust and take help from him even when he may not be best-suited for the task in comparison to her other friends. His romantic attraction to her is overt. When HAPA relocates, Trent uses his intel to help triangulate their position the second time. He visits Rachel and tells her (essentially) that he would rather be involved in her type of work than genetic research and building a business empire that spans half of North America. Accordingly, he makes her a set of wild-magic charms to use on her run, one of which, when it is invoked, accidentally pulls him to her when she is at a desperate moment in a fight with Eloy. Trent appears, unnoticed by Rachel and Eloy, and knocks him out, saving her and tagging him. He then carries Rachel to safety and works on the puzzle of the men-who-don't-belong until Ivy carries Rachel away from him. Soon afterward, when Eloy escapes FIB custody, Trent spirits Rachel away from a pizza party with her friends, and takes her on an impromptu run to apprehend Eloy and Dr. Cordova. During the fight, he does the majority of the work, circling himself with the attackers and cursing Dr. Cordova, incapacitating her and stunning Eloy, resulting in a victory. In the aftermath, Trent shows that he, too, has immunity to the memory-blocking drugs used by the men-who-don't-belong to make them forget the tag, and he and Rachel have coffee with cherry pie. Trent doesn't want his daughter to be exposed to Algaliarept, but when she is at Ceri's insistence, Al takes an interest in her and ingratiates himself with the baby, leaving Trent with a deep mistrust and worry. 'Ever After' Spoiler warning: Quen informs us that Trent has become more independent lately, and can use a new comrade to watch his back when he is out in public--he proposes that Rachel take this position, but Rachel initially refuses (Trent is not consulted). Trent enters the plot after a news report of the abduction of several children with Rosewood syndrome. He calls Quen to say he's going to the crime scene personally, and expresses some apparent jealousy when he learns that Quen is having dinner with Rachel. He seems intent on gathering information and apprehensive of I.S. obfuscation. In the Novellas and Short Stories 'Undead in the Garden of Good and Evil' Trent does not appear in this story. 'Two Ghosts for Sister Rachel' Trent does not appear in this story. 'Dirty Magic' Trent does not appear in this story. 'The Bridges of Eden Park' Trent does not appear in this story. 'The Bespelled' Trent does not appear in this story. Ley Line Drifter Trent does not appear in this story. Powers Wild Magic As an elf, Trent can employ Wild Magic, a unique form of magic that is known to be extremely effective and powerful, yet completely unpredictable, a type of magic based on trickery and deception. Unlike earth, ley-line or demon magic, wild magic draws power from the divine and from the person itself, requiring a series of songs and chants in order to cast spells and charms, though it can also be made into physical amulets like any other magic. Like all other types of magic, it can also be made into physical charms. While initially having minimal skill in this, Trent recently started to dabble and slowly build up his prowess with this magic. He can create charms that can restore or erase a person's memory, enthral people, knock them unconscious, separate a soul from it's body, nullify a demon's magic and teleport him to a chosen person if they are in danger among other things. He can perform healing magic to a certain extent. His aura is of the same type as Rachel's and as such, he can use it to restore her own if it's damaged or removed in any way. Other Skills Aside from his magical prowess, Trent is a consumate and skilled businessman and politician. This affords him a great deal of control and legal power in the Cincinnati area. He is also an acomplished drug lord and patron on the development of illegal bio-drugs, having effectively created a financial and political empire. He is a very intelligent and shrewd man, having thwarded Rachel's atempts to have him arrested on several occassions, as well as dealing with other powers such as demons, vampires and witches who wanted to bring him down. Aside from his intelligence, he is a physically fit person and also apparently a proficient thief, having managed to kidnapp Lucy from the Withons highly-secured house. He is also learning runner skills and duties with Rachel. Due to his knowledge of bio-drugs and such other substances, Trent became immune or atleast highly resistant to the effects of memory altering drugs. Due to the emmancipation curse that Rachel casted in order to neutralize her familiar bond with Trent, he in now capable of summoning any demon without having to pay any cost or fear being killed by them. Trivia In The Outlaw Demon Wails, it is suggested that "Kalamassea" may have been an early elven version of Kalamack's family name. Category:Elf Category:Characters Category:Supporting Character